50 years ago, professor E. Paul Torrance tested a group of nearly 400 Minneapolis children on creativity, which has since evolved into his colleague tracking the grown kids to see if the documented levels of creativity were any indication of their adult accomplishments. Time has shown those who came up with more creative ideas on Torrance’s tests grew up to be entrepreneurs, inventors, college presidents, authors, doctors, diplomats, and software developers. It’s no wonder 1,500 CEOs said creativity was the number one leadership skill of the future.

The importance of this study and others like it, is that researchers have found a significant decline in creativity; possibly from the increased hours of children playing videogames and watching TV or the lack of creativity in the classroom. Too often people confuse art with creativity, but as noted in the article, we look to creative solutions to solve national and international matters from saving the Gulf of Mexico to delivering health care. It’s a fact that ingenuity is a human necessity.

Article: The Creativity Crisis

The accepted definition of creativity is production of something original and useful, and that’s what’s reflected in the tests. There is never one right answer. To be creative requires divergent thinking (generating many unique ideas) and then convergent thinking (combining those ideas into the best result).